“How sure are you?” he asked. “Is this just a hunch?”
I shook my head. “No, I overheard Deborah and Donnelly talking. Twice. Donnelly’s got money problems, and they were lovers. He talked her into stealing two paintings, but then he got greedy. The necklace was an afterthought. They planned to plant it on me, but you screwed that up by arresting me before they had the chance.”
“So, I did something right?”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Libby,” he said, and the tone in his voice stopped me. “I do owe you an apology, and the Chamber will take care of your lawyer bills.”
I gaped at him.
He took a deep breath and continued. “I needed to placate Donnelly and Zhukoff. They were insistent that you’d stolen the paintings. I was hoping that by arresting you, they might drop their guard and make a mistake. I should have told you, but we needed your honest reaction. When I discovered they hadn’t told the insurance company—” He gestured toward Deborah’s body. “This whole case has blown up now. With Deborah and Wilson dead, I’m running out of suspects.”
I wandered around the alley for a bit, trying to figure out if I should forgive Wil or gut him, then told him, “If you ever do something like that to me again, you’ll be singing soprano. Understand?” I looked over at Deborah. “Somebody drove her body here. Find her car. Check on Donnelly’s whereabouts last night. If he didn’t do it, or order it, then he’s in an absolute panic.”
“Why would he panic now?” Wil asked. “I could see him panicking and killing her, but why panic if he didn’t?”
“Because with this robbery, he’s let criminals into his life. The kind of people that were only an abstraction before. If someone killed her, then he could be next.”
He looked thoughtful. “That makes a lot of sense.”
“And if he’s nervous, he’s likely to make a mistake. Put a tail on him. Deborah was the main contact to Martinez. I’d put a tail on her, too. Things just got a lot more complicated for everyone involved.”
Wil drove us to the museum. I was surprised that Jess wasn’t in her office. I didn’t even know who to ask if she’d called in. After all, Deborah was her supervisor.
“Have you released news of Deborah’s death?” I asked Wil.
“No. We haven’t contacted her relatives yet. Her parents live someplace in Iowa, and she has a sister in British Columbia.”
He came back that afternoon to pick us up and take us to the ME’s office.
“The wound in the belly was the cause of death,” the ME told us. None of the other wounds were life-threatening.”
“How many other wounds?” Mike asked.
“Twelve stab wounds and the cut on the cheek. All the stab wounds were fairly superficial except the lower one.”
“Trajectory?” I asked.
“Upward.” He picked up a scalpel and demonstrated. Then he turned the knife over in his hand. “The chest wounds were made like this.” He flipped the scalpel over, raised his hand over his head and stabbed down. “I would guess the victim was lying on the floor when the secondary wounds were inflicted.”
“What kind of knife?”
“It appears to have been a kitchen knife. Smooth blade, single edge, about six inches long and an inch wide. The time of death was around nine o’clock last night, as best as we can figure. It was very cold last night, so the body was ambient when she was found.”
As we left the morgue, Wil said, “We found her car about a mile from where we found her body. A block from a train station. Her clothes were in another dumpster between the body and the car.”
“And the condition of the car?” I asked.
“The trunk is bloody, just like her clothes.”
“Did you find any other bloody clothes?” Mike asked. “The killer would have gotten pretty messy.”
“No, but I’ll tell Chicago Police to keep looking,” Wil said.
“Blood inside the passenger compartment? Any evidence from the killer?” Mike continued.
“The forensics people are going through it. We’ll see. I’m not sure why the killer stripped her.”
“Hoping to delay identification,” I said. “Well, that blows that theory.”
“What theory?” Mike and Wil asked together.
“That it was a professional hit. Kitchen knife.”
“So, you don’t think it’s connected to the robbery?” Wil asked.
“Oh, it’s connected. I’m just saying that a professional hit man wouldn’t use a kitchen knife. An art thief might, however.”
Chapter 18
Wil and one of the Chicago detectives questioned Malcolm Donnelly, who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, supply an alibi. Winifred Donnelly said she was home all night, but the butler had the night off and the rest of the staff were either gone or in their rooms. None of her staff could say when Mrs. Donnelly came home, or if she did, or if she went out again. I asked if she drove a car, and Wil told me she didn’t have a license. As if someone committing murder cared about such things.
When Jess showed up for work the next day, her face was puffy, her eyes red and swollen, and she burst into tears about every five minutes. She had no alibi. She said she’d been at home watching a vid.
Other than me, that exhausted the immediate pool of suspects. Considering Deborah’s free-wheeling social life, and her penchant for discretion, the police hit all the bars and restaurants that Jess, Wil and I knew she frequented. Winifred’s divorce filing supplied a few more possibilities. Her private investigator had followed Deborah and Malcolm around for months.
Malcolm was less than forthcoming during a second visit from Wil. Privately, I considered Margarita Martinez a suspect, but preferred that no one tip her off that we connected her to the robbery.
For myself, I couldn’t see Winifred managing to dispose of the body. Even the ultra rich didn’t have people on call for that sort of thing. It might make a good side business, though. I could hire vamps and lycans. Plenty of muscle and an unerring sense of smell. Cleaning up the blood wouldn’t be a problem. I could probably get bookings through divorce lawyers.
Deborah’s domestic staff said she had gone out around four o’clock in the afternoon and hadn’t come back. The calendars on her home and work computers didn’t show any appointments. Her phone was missing. The phone company showed her only calls, both in and out, were with the Institute.
The police waited another day, then released the news of Deborah’s death.
Chung called me in to his office at the Institute the following day.
“You know that the insurance corporations share a database on art,” he said after I sat down in his office. “We track all insured works and those who own or trade in them.”
I nodded. It included such works as the Gaugin I found, even though it had been missing for over a hundred years. It still listed works stolen in the twentieth century.
“We also track certain individuals, your father is one, and so are you because of him.”
He waited, but when I didn’t respond, he continued. “A couple of men on our list, Bernard Carpentier and Edouard Maillard, flew in from France this morning.”
“The names don’t mean anything to me,” I said.
“Carpentier is a very close associate of one of the names on the list you gave me, Georges Hollande. Maillard is the curator of his collection.”
Hollande I recognized as head of one of the major crime families in France.
“They came to collect Hollande’s painting or paintings,” I said.
“That is my assumption,” Chung replied.
I wasn’t sure what to think. In the conversation of hers that I overheard, Martinez had seemed in no hurry to move the paintings. Did Deborah’s death change her mind? Or did it spur Hollande to action?
“We released the list of the stolen art to the media,” Chung said, breaking into my reverie.
“When did you do that?”
“The day before Director Zhukoff’s
death.”
That meant either event could have prompted Hollande’s action, or the combination of events. I also wondered if that news had anything to do with Deborah’s murder.
“Mr. Chung, in your experience, do buyers at this level pick up their purchases, or take delivery?”
He cupped his chin in his hand and got a faraway look in his eyes. “That’s an interesting question. If it were me, I’d want the seller to take the risk of moving it to Europe. Too much can go wrong between here and there, and then you’re out the money. Even with a legitimate sale, the buyer usually wants the seller to take the risk of shipment. Of course, with a legitimate sale, the shipment is insured. That’s not an option in this case.”
I nodded, following his line of reasoning. “So, assuming that Monsieur Hollande has experience with such acquisitions, why would he take the chance?”
“Another very good question.” The hint of a smile crooked the corner of his mouth. “We can always speculate, can’t we?”
I smiled back at him. “He’s concerned that things are too messy at this end, so he sent his boys to take charge of things.”
“Very reasonable. Another possibility is, he found out the complete scope of the theft, and is interested in one or more of the other paintings,” Chung responded.
That stopped me, and I thought about Chung’s comments when I first handed him my dad’s potential list of buyers.
“Hollande collects both Degas and Monet?” I asked.
“Hollande collects a lot of things. For the right price, he might take all five paintings. He and a man in Russia, who wasn’t on your list, are the only ones I could see as buyers for the necklace.”
“Mr. Chung, I think we know who organized this robbery. Do you have any suspicions as to who actually executed the plan?”
He shook his head. “No. Right now, I’m assuming they hired locals to do it.”
I went back to the hotel and did some research online. Hollande was implicated in drugs, extortion, human trafficking, weapons, and just about anything else the legitimate corporations wouldn’t touch. His legitimate businesses included hotels and casinos. One financial expert estimated Hollande’s worth in the thirty to fifty billion credit range.
One thing that caught my attention was a quote from an interview with Hollande. “I enjoy beautiful things—paintings, sculptures, houses, women—I collect them all.”
I hated dealing with the mob. The corporations might not care about an individual human life, but they were always profit driven. The crime families didn’t need an excuse for anything they did. They might kill someone on a whim or a moment of irritation.
I listened to the recordings through my bug in Margarita Martinez’s office, but didn’t hear anything interesting. Her email had a message from an anonymous account in France that only said, Our representatives will contact you in Chicago on Thursday. That would be the following day.
I called Wil. “Did you put a tail on Martinez?”
“It’s on my to-do list. I’ve been a little busy.”
“What are you doing right now?”
“You mean, other than talking to you? I just got out of a meeting with the AIC board of directors. They voted to suspend Malcolm until, as they said, ‘questions surrounding the robbery are resolved’. They want me to oversee your remaining work on the network security.”
“Meet me someplace.”
“Where?”
“Someplace unlikely to get bombed. A place that serves alcohol and real food.”
When Mike and I reached the restaurant, he said, “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll just hang out at the bar and have a drink.” I watched him sit next to a pretty vamp and then turned to look for Wil.
He waved at me from a corner booth, and I wandered over, sat down, and punched my drink order into the automenu.
“The prices are reasonable,” I said. “How’s the food?”
“The fish is all from natural farms, guaranteed antibiotic free and heavy metal free. The hamburgers are real beef from their own farm. Chicken also.”
“Lots of that here in Chicago,” I said.
“Not really. Not enough of it, anyway.”
I ordered and then told him about my meeting with Chung. “That’s why we need a tail put on Martinez. A long-range listening device, too, if you can. If the buyers are coming to town, things are going to get interesting.”
“Sure thing. I can tap her phone, too.”
I shrugged. “Won’t do any good. She uses a special phone for this kind of business, and I suspect it’s shielded. I also suspect it has a weird routing that would make it hard to identify.”
“Because that’s what you’d do?”
“Of course. Don’t sell her short. My source tells me she’s one of the top brokers in the world. She didn’t get there overnight, and the Chamber didn’t even know about her.”
Wil nodded, but he didn’t look happy. “Should I do it right now?”
“The buyers from France will contact her in the morning,” I answered. “I’d suggest you have someone out there early. She’s going to leave the house around eight.”
He stared at me with his mouth hanging open. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Aren’t you glad I’m on your side?” I gave him a big smile. “I could have read her mind, but instead, I looked at her calendar. She has an appointment with her hairdresser at ten. The boys from France will be a little jet-lagged, so expect them to get around to contacting her about the same time.”
I ate my burger and we chatted.
“I’ve missed you,” Wil said, abruptly, interrupting a conversation about music.
He took me off guard and made me a little uncomfortable, so I answered, “Why? All the other women in town afraid to go out with you? I keep telling you, take a girl to a bombing, and the word gets around.”
“Yeah, that’s part of it, I guess.” His tone was wistful, and the expression on his face tender. Red flags went off like fireworks in my head.
“Well, I kind of missed you, too. I hate it when men treat me like a girl. I’m much more comfortable being just one of the guys.” Oh, Libby. I wondered how long my nose grew on that one.
He acted as if he was going to say something, then with a small shake of his head, didn’t. I changed the subject to farms and restaurants and an article I’d read about gardens on roofs of urban buildings.
When we got up to go, Mike came over from the bar.
“I think we have a problem,” he said, leaning close and speaking into my ear.
“How so?”
“There was a vamp sitting at the bar when we came in. He paid you a lot of attention, and when you sat down, he left in a hurry. Left a fresh drink sitting there.”
I asked Wil, “Are we near the mutie district?”
“On the edge. It really starts a couple of blocks from here.”
“Maybe we should go out the back.”
Wil raised an eyebrow. “Who have you pissed off that I don’t know about?”
“Remember a tavern bombing and a couple of snipers? You weren’t the only one paying attention to me that evening.”
Mike went back to the bar and spoke to the bartender, who motioned to a hallway beyond the bar. Mike turned back and motioned to us, and we followed him down the hallway.
We passed through the kitchen, and the staff gave us funny looks, but didn’t say anything or try to stop us. Mike stuck his head out the back door and looked around, then continued through.
Our luck ran out when we reached the end of the alley. A very tall, thin man appeared in front of us.
“Keep your hands where we can see them,” Gustav Alscher said in his gravelly German accent. “We have you surrounded.”
I looked up and saw people on the rooftops. There were sounds of movement in the alley behind me.
“What do you want?” Wil asked.
“Her. Come with me, girl, and we’ll let your friends go. Nobody gets hurt.”
“Some
body’s going to get hurt,” Wil said. “I guarantee you’ll personally never know the outcome of this.”
“Wil, no,” I said. “It’s okay. I’ll go with them.” Dropping my voice to almost inaudible, I leaned close to Mike. “I’ll call you when I shake free.”
Stepping forward, I said, “Okay, let’s go.”
A man stepped close to me and reached out his hand to take my arm. I spun to face him. “Let’s get the parameters of my cooperation straight right now. Anyone who lays a hand on me dies. That’s non-negotiable.”
“Leave her alone,” Alscher said. “She said she’ll come. That’s enough.”
I walked through a gantlet to a waiting van and got inside. Alscher got in the back with me, and we drove away. The driver tried to be cute. He took random turns to try to shake off any tails and confuse me. At one point, he drove in a four-block circle for fifteen minutes.
With a yawn, I told Alscher, “I still know where I am and where the lake is. Tell that fool to just drive before I fall asleep.”
Of course, the last thing I would have been able to do was sleep. I was so keyed up that I was almost vibrating.
“Does Carly know that you’ve snatched me?” I asked out of curiosity.
“There wasn’t time to find her,” he said.
“So, where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer, just turned and watched out the windows. So, I did the same thing. We eventually left the civilized parts of town and plunged into one of those post-apocalyptic nightmare landscapes such as the one I’d seen with Mike. Very few people out on the streets, and some of them only remotely resembled a human being.
Most people who grew up in a corporate culture, no matter how far down in the hierarchy, never met one of the extreme mutants. At most, they might have come face-to-face with a vamp or one of the more-human-looking lycans. Pictures of trolls and other monsters often didn’t do them justice.
We drove past a troll standing on the sidewalk talking to a vamp girl dressed like a street hooker. The man, or at least I assumed it was male, stood much taller than Alscher’s seven feet. I would swear he easily weighed four hundred pounds, and it was all bulging muscle. He had skin so dark it was black at night, completely hairless, with teeth that would make the most extreme lycan proud.
Chameleon Uncovered Page 14
